A hard fought battle led to an interminable siege at Vaith, with the Dornishmen under-supplied and the Bright Banners within the walls of the town isolated from any likely help. Would the Dornishmen try to storm the town? Would the Beslon the Bad attempt a truce? Matters hung in the balance, before a parley was called and Beslon and some of his officers rode out to meet Ser Laurent Dalt and his companions half way between the walls and the Dornish siege camp. For the most part, it seemed as is Smallwood was quite bored and sought the parley as entertainment. The banter traded back and forth was the usual posturing and crude matters that seem to follow sellswords everywhere, and it did not seem as if Beslon was like to surrender. In fact, he offered a warning to Ser Laurent, saying that Oakenfist had sent a force from Salt Shore to relieve the town. Dalt disbelieved him, and some remarks were made about the townsmen in Vaith being almost as dangerous as the Dornishmen outside.

Eventually, however, Ser Laurent passed on Prince Marence’s offer of hiring the Bright Banners if they would cut their banners and bring Vaith to him. One of the sellswords was willing to listen, the man claimed, if the boy accompanying Dalt would be part of the price, but Dalt demured. 7,000 golden suns were promised as wages for two months. But Beslon the Bad asked about what would become of Vaith—his ambition to be made Lord of Vaith was now well-known, at Sunspear and at King’s Landing both. Ser Laurent made it plain that whoever controlled Vaith afterward, it would not be Beslon. And that put an end to that.

Smallwood began to return to Vaith—after telling Dalt that he planned to send those townsmen outside the walls, mouths that would burden the siege if he did so—with his companions when Ser Laurent made a last offer: 7,000 suns for the Bright Banners, and 1,000 suns for the man who brought him Beslon Smallwood. Beslon the Bad scoffed and ignored it, and rode on his way. A minute after entering the gates, his men on the walls began to throw objects off the wall: severed heads, dozens, hundreds of them, apparently belonging to every man and boy over the age of 12 in Vaith.

But several days later… Krazdan Big Nose appeared on the walls with a truce banner, and when the Dornishmen prepared to meet him, he and his companions stepped through the gates with a man dragged between them. It was none other than Beslon, bruised and beaten. They threw him upon the ground before Ser Laurent, who promisd he would give Krazdan and the Bright Banners his reward. The boy, Mordred, alternately kicked sand and poured a stream of water onto Smallwood’s face as he lay there, and even when Ser Laurent spoke to him. When asked what value he had as a hostage, Beslon said—between groans and coughs of blood—that for his piety, the High Septon would pay 10,000 dragons, and that every septa between Vaith and Oldtown would spread her legs to help him raise so much. It seemed he was resigned to his death, and met it stoutly enough, promising to keep the fires warm for Ser Laurent in one of the seven hells, where he’d take pleasure in voiding his bowels on the likes of Krazdan down in the last hell, the traitor’s hell.

And then Ser Laurent took his head off with his axe. So ended Beslon Smallwood, Beslon the Bad as he was called, a man who had practiced every vice in the course of his days. Krazdan and the other officers would see the gates thrown open for the Dornishmen, and receive their gold, and then settle in with Ser Laurent to concoct a plan for how to move on to their next target: Godsgrace.